The dangers of DRLs 4646

C.H.

I've had this discussion with so many people and so many times, and the factsw are out there, if you actually cared about the subject you'd have educated yourself on it by now instead of merely trying to "win" an argument.

Your "opinion" happens to be wrong, when it comes to ABS.

It's real easy. When you brake on a split mu surface the high mu side will tend to make the vehicle rotate in that direction. Rather than force the driver to use steering input to correct, the ABS will dump pressure on the high mu side to the point that braking is effectively limited to little more than that offered by the low mu surface. Whereas without ABS, if the low mu side is ice or wet, smooth concrete there's really no problem just letting the low mu wheels lock and using lots of steering input to keep the vehicle pointed in the direction you want to go. Doesn't require a whole lot of skill, just reflexes fast enough to turn the steering wheel in the correct manner.

I really am not sure how far my NDA goes. I imagine it's expired by now, but I don't really know. I don't claim to be an "expert" - as I really only spent about six months working directly with ABS systems. But I do have experience that most people don't have, and lots more behind-the-wheel experience actually USING it than 95% of the public. (well, I hope. It would scare me to discover that a significant amount of people use their ABS every day...)

See above. Seen this behavior first in Dodge vans back when I was driving shuttle vans to get through college, would have been about 1993-1994 or so. All the drivers experienced what felt like near total brake failure when stopping on patchy ice, and lobbied the powers that be to not order ABS on any new vans as we felt it was unsafe. (The powers that be refused; stating that were an incident to occur, in a lawsuit the absence of ABS would likely be brought up as "evidence" of the school's lack of concern about safety; even if in fact all drivers felt safer and more comfortable without it. This was my introduction to politics and how it can make you do things you don't want to do...) Experience was corroborated when I spent about six months working in ABS development for a major supplier a couple years ago. Things were much improved by then, don't get me wrong, but decisions were made, both customer driven and NHTSA driven, that sacrificed ultimate stopping distance for "idiot-proof" stability, thus making it easy for someone who actually had experience driving in low-traction conditions to "beat" the ABS. This held true for just about every American truck-based vehicle platform as of 4-5 years ago. Didn't have much experience with cars, but they tended to be intrinsically more stable due to better suspension geometry, so they were able to be tuned a little more aggressively.

See, I didn't even bring up gravel or loose snow... (that's what you were expecting me to say, wasn't it?)

nate